This is a very small example of how my experience of the world plays out pretty regularly. I can barely say anything, ever, that isn't given way to "Ummmm" or "Are you sure?" As though I don't know I like watermelon flavor, lattes, or can form really any independent opinion or view you maybe haven't heard before. If you own a coffee shop in Seattle where golden retrievers sprawl out on the floor, you're still not immune to reacting like a basic when I'm around.
I'm noticing more and new patterns with who I do or don't get along with. I get along with "simple" people. I had a really fun conversation with a bartender who reminded me of a puppy in Seattle. If you have maybe a dozen targets in life you've been trying to hit regarding your income, social prospects, or hobbies, and never care to venture beyond, I never register as a threat or intimidating because you've figured your shit out. I get along with super smart people. Like, ones qualified to tell you what to do on important things that maybe keep us all alive. Everything in between really simple and really smart just gets weird, for them, or I have to manage.
A persistent dilemma of mine is to receive just a ton of positive feedback. I started quoting and writing down whenever it happens. Or, mostly whenever it happens, because sometimes it's not really the time or in passing between subjects. It suggests that my management of people is on point. I was recently observed by a counselor I respected who was beaming and telling his people, who I'm taking over in group, that he's confident he's leaving them in good hands. I've managed to parlay years of introspection and reading and practical application crisis management into a hyper-active capacity to connect with huge numbers of people. Yes, yes, I did run the party house, and some would argue poorly. But this is "real life." We're talking all the stuff that makes you crazy sad and addicted.
My distance, the "weird" place that plainly states things feels like most of the…asset? I see almost immediately why you're crying, name it, suck the wind out of it, ten seconds later you're smiling and agreeing with me, and then…we eat cake? It's automatic. I'm not thinking very hard about most of the issues people bring to me because the answers all terminate to a question. Do you recognize your power or responsibility to this situation? If not, you go into automatic coping. If you do, you might still opt for a messier version of automatic coping. Or, occasionally, you start to recognize and feel powerful and responsible for "everything" related to your perception of whatever the horrific events.
That isn't to say it's always horrific. You also need to be aware of the positive and things to celebrate. I see that being a considerable handicap people have. They pretend to celebrate or feel good with sentiments like, "It could always be worse." Sure, but that doesn't mean anything. It certainly doesn't feel that way when you say it. It could also be better. Do either of those directions tell me anything about your awareness or agency? No.
I hit 90 "funs", technically yesterday. I continue to feel accomplished and lucky and like I want to keep gobbling these experiences up as though next year it'll be too hot to start a concert before 10:00 PM if you wish to be outside. In my mind, all I've done is spend money I don't have and plan. I feel like we all do this in service to our bills, debts, or ill-fashioned dreams, I just made it about shows for a couple years. I'm still never really more than 3-6 months in debt that also serves as part of my argument to not quit my job in moments of frustration. On days I'm not driving to the next show, I'm either restless, or begin to venture out to yard work. I've begun to say often, "There's infinite work." It frees me from thinking any given project can really be complete if I'm not doing it in a deliberate and measured way.
It's hard to figure out how I can "do what I want" across so many superficial metrics, but when it comes to getting "freer" or "capitalizing" on what, presumably is a skill and hot commodity, I can't find a way to not be in debt, maintain all the things like insurance, keep my pace for hobbies and indulgences, and live almost precisely as I do now, but with more "flow." Maybe at a quicker pace because I can hire help or live in several places at once while continuing to connect remotely. It truly is the heart of a giant agonizing puzzle I cannot grasp.
I can build a whole world of blame around our "sick care" system, capitalism, captured greedy interests all along the political landscape. I can point to system failures in pay, language, education, or morality. It still feels like it's my problem though. Like I'm doing something wrong. It also feels like even if I could garner the support, it would come with this awkwardness or set of informal conditions from those who wouldn't really know what they were supporting. I'd say something like, "I get all this positive feedback, people need this, and it's profitable." In return, when I wasn't stuck behind bureaucracy, I feel like there'd be an unconscious pull to undermine it. No one gets the dream, silly, why would you expect me to help you in any sort of meaningful way? What could I, a mere normal person you must manage, really contribute?
I'm asking for watermelon lattes. They taste good. They're not reinventing the wheel. They're not any more or less expensive than a vanilla latte. Watermelon isn't hard to pronounce. Lattes aren't a new concept. "The universe," for lack of a better conceptual term perpetually responds with, "Ummmm, I wouldn't do watermelon…" and then smirks and giggles that it could also be hot.
I'm a very rich person. I'm highly educated. I own a lot of cool shit. I spend exorbitantly on things like nice smells and making noise. I've experienced more pop culture than I'll ever have the time to talk about. I've had long-term meaningful relationships. I've been party animal and hermit. I can build things just as soon as spend all day reading about how to build them. I live this incredible life with an insane amount of confidence that, in one form or another, I can figure it out or I can continually prove what I'm worth and what I'm after. If you have even the most feeble of flame with regard to yourself, if you spend enough time around me, I turn it into a raging inferno.
So perhaps this helps me understand why I can't get the help I need. I'm only analyzing the one stuck variable. I'm neglecting to see the other things I'll antagonize or exchange. The more intimately you know me, the more those things that whisper to you start to burn. Every invitation becomes a risk of burning down whatever current conception or place you've carved out for yourself. It then becomes, again, not really about me or a reason to personalize, but about the effect I have on the areas of your thoughts or life that you haven't quite squared with yourself. This makes sense to me. I don't know that I'll ever get someone chiming in to agree or contradict it, but that's with nearly everything.
Every invitation has an in-built dare to be infinitely responsible. Can you deal with existentially crippling fallout? Can you pivot? Can you cut losses? Can you choke down more shit than you could imagine and still feel genuinely accomplished that there was a bit of corn in there? No. You're fragile. Vanilla lattes are delicious. Cold brews are orders of magnitude more profitable. "What the fuck are you asking for a hot watermelon latte for? Aren't you rich already? You could buy hundreds of vanilla lattes we could enjoy together. You did say they were delicious too."
I've been flirting with a new idea for kickstarting the counseling business. It would involve some "radical" moves that might undermine my, still feeling needed, consistently high paychecks. I don't want to jump the gun, and there's some practical website logistics to work out, but it would put me in the streets and in front of people doing what it is apparently only I can do. I envision myself as the front-man in my band. Do I have that energy? That style? That slightly off-putting commentary between songs that gives my zealots something to concoct apologetic narratives around? Across a few domains, it does appear so.
Maybe I build a 6 month or so timeline. Wind down the shows. Genuinely focus on paying things off instead of kicking the can. Make the website modifications. Ensure the state-certified floor is in place for the next few years. Hell, in a month I could start aspects of the "radical" transition. My back isn't really against a wall. That strategy is for doing shit I don't want to do. I think unconsciously I've been looking for a more suitable or spikey wall because it's been hard to see ways to approach my problem that weren't feeling fundamentally objectionable. I may have stumbled into a path forward that will require continued patience and some deliberately long days trying to learn a few new things. Of course I can do it, but fuck me is it hard to figure out what "it" is all the time by myself.
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